


compellation

by penhaligon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, the mortifying ordeal of being known but it's actually kinda nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22402960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: Jon has a question.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 19
Kudos: 229





	compellation

"When did you, ah--"

These days, Jon spoke so delicately when he asked questions, like there was glass between his teeth and a gateway to knowing in his eyes. But the words dropped away, abrupt and swallowed, and when Martin looked up, Jon's mouth was pulled thin. He cleared his throat. "Hrm. Never mind."

He turned mechanically and returned to scrubbing the stove, but Martin didn't resume his wipe-down of the fridge. He stood there with a fistful of kitchen towel, waiting for Jon to work up his courage again. Jon had been doing a lot of that lately, since they'd arrived at the safe house –- asking questions of a non-compelling and often quite awkward sort, pushing conversation forward, like he knew that Martin was out of practice, that sometimes it felt like heavy, alluring fog lingered still, winding through Martin's thoughts and up his throat in a sickeningly gentle caress.

Martin thought that Jon was out of practice too, but he was trying so obviously, painfully hard, and it made something in Martin's chest clench, tight and airy both.

But Jon didn't work up the courage again. Instead, he worked on the stove with his intensity single-minded and his shoulders rigid, and the stove was past clean, and Martin swallowed the glassy impulse to let the moment pass. "What were you gonna say?"

Jon's hands stilled, before rubbing away at a spotless stretch of ceramic with vigor. "Ah," he said. "It's... it's not important."

"But it is, though," Martin said, and he didn't add that of course it was important, it was _Jon_ , and Martin was still half-expecting him to be gone every time he looked Jon's way. Or perhaps he was just expecting that of himself, to find himself slipped away and vanished even when Jon reached out to him. "I think you might scrub the paint off otherwise."

Jon pulled away from the stove like it had burned him, and Martin didn't need any powers of the Eye to see the way Jon that considered veering off and diving headfirst into another topic. But he steeled himself and shot a sideways glance in Martin's direction as he began aimlessly gathering up the cleaning supplies scattered around the kitchen.

"In--" Jon said, very deliberately, delicately, edging around the structure of a question, "in the Lonely, you-- I've been thinking about what you said, when..." He went silent and swallowed and held on very tightly to the load of towels and spray bottles in his arms. "... You said you... _loved_ me. And I..."

But it seemed that whatever had possessed him to bring it up out of the blue had fled and left him floundering, and before an awkward silence could creep in and make things worse, Martin gathered his own courage, this time. "Yeah," he said, and it was easier to talk, to strip away the last clinging tendrils of fog, when he was filling in a space that Jon had a harder time with. Even if it felt like taking a terrifying step off of a precipice. "I do. Not-- not past tense? If that's what you were gonna ask."

 _When did you stop?_ his brain supplied helpfully, or unhelpfully, to close the gap of the aborted question that Jon was struggling to voice. But Martin hadn't, not ever, not really, even if that endless quiet had wanted him to feel otherwise.

"I was _not_ ," Jon said, surprising him. Martin knew that the bite behind his words was just how he reacted to discomfort, and Jon's voice softened at once. Course correcting. "Sorry, I-- I know." It wasn't a capitalized kind of know. It was of a normal, mundane sort, and Martin felt that airy squeezing in his chest again. "I'm not completely an idiot," Jon added sourly, because he had a special gift for ruining a moment.

And Martin knew that he wasn't going to say it back. But that was okay, because Jon wasn't always good at the actual saying of things, and he said a lot, anyway, without saying a thing. All of his recent attempts at largely meaningless and comforting fluffs of conversation were a testament to that.

But then Jon said, "And I-- feel the same. About you," like it was his job to do the opposite of whatever Martin's brain seemed to think he was going to do.

"Oh," was all Martin could say, dreamlike but not in the empty, muted way of the Lonely's still waters. "Good."

Which was such a stupid thing to say in response to a clear declaration of reciprocated feelings, but Jon didn't seem to notice.

"I suppose I should have mentioned that earlier," Jon said, somewhere between sheepish and stiff.

Martin cleared his throat. His voice still cracked. "Yeah." He got the sense, then, that perhaps they'd been operating along two different lines of thought: one in which they'd been avoiding the nature of things until now, until they were settled, safe, as much as they could be, and one in which the nature of things had already been processed and accounted for. Jon _had_ been acting very attentive and accommodating, after all, and _oh_...

With an graceless jerk, like his limbs were yanked into movement by an outside force, Jon deposited his armful of supplies onto the table along with the rest that Martin had gotten from the local shop, a clattering of plastic against wood. He began uselessly sorting and arranging everything, and Martin thought that it should all be more momentous.

He'd known, of course, on some completely rational level, that Jon had to love him back, fully, or he'd never have gotten Martin out of the Lonely, never have sounded like _that_ or looked like _that_ , between its empty fog and silver water. But it was another thing to hear it, to address the elephant in the room, and it felt as though a simple statement that rocked Martin's world down to its foundations should have been accompanied by... something more grand. Their lives being in danger, maybe. Some tender holding and further declarations. Or tears.

Upon consideration, Martin decided that he liked it better this way. As a fact of life, alongside Jon nervously trying to make the table neat even though the concept of neat had become increasingly allergic to him and the cleaning supplies would soon enough be going back into their cupboards anyway.

And then Martin realized that his question had been dodged. "Hang on," he said. "What did you want to ask me, then?"

The color of Jon's face looked a little deeper. His many dotted scars stood out starkly as he kept his head turned away from Martin and stared down at a spray bottle in his hand, as if determining the most precise place to put it amid the clutter. "Oh," he said. "That. Well..." He sighed. "I will admit to being... _perplexed_ and, and... curious, I suppose, about... certain things. I've been... thinking back. Trying to... _place_ when.... well. I'm struggling to grasp what the appeal might have been, for you." He glanced at Martin without really looking at him, a little helplessly.

But Martin knew what Jon was getting at, and he realized that he was still standing by the fridge with towel in hand, a bit too far for comfort. So he stepped closer, dropping the towel onto the table, and he couldn't help the little grin that tugged at his mouth as he faced Jon across the table. It was... a less dire curiosity than he'd been expecting. Maybe he was just too used to the horrific and sinister, for something so _normal_ \-- and, frankly, a bit adorable -- to surprise him.

"You... want to know when I started liking you?" Martin asked, and it was so easy, to let an odd sort of confidence bubble up in the wake of Jon's faltering. But that was the thing, wasn't it? It was occasionally, blindingly easy in the most unexpected ways, smoothing out the rough edges of difficulty.

Something that might have been an embarrassed smile showed a sliver of its hand in response to Martin's, but Jon made a valiant effort to suppress it. He shrugged, setting the bottle down, the casual motions belied by how calculated they were. He was hopeless at playing it cool. "It doesn't seem like there was much to _like_."

"Don't," Martin said. "Don't start that, okay?" He didn't give Jon time to respond, and Jon's teeth clicked together anyway in the face of Martin's sudden defensiveness. "You want to know what it was? I--"

But Martin came to a full stop, the confidence fizzling out as quickly as it had come, because if he admitted it, he had to admit other things along with it. He didn't think Jon would look at him differently, exactly. But Martin wasn't good at... that. He'd never been good at that. At letting himself be _seen,_ even without the Lonely's influence still at his back.

"Ask me," Martin said.

It didn't register right away for Jon, and then it did. His brows drew together, and he shook his head quickly, reflexively. "What?"

"Please, Jon," Martin said, and he watched Jon melt a little under his name in Martin's voice, and he wanted Jon to _know_. To see. _Look at me and tell me what you see._ "There's a point to it, and my head still feels like... like it's full of mist. Ask me."

Jon's mouth drew thin again, but Martin didn't look away, and finally, Jon sighed. The annoyance in it didn't bother Martin, because it was oddly gratifying to watch Jon cave to him so quickly. "Fine," Jon said, and when he spoke next, the air between them trembled and hissed. "Tell me when you started... _liking_ me."

The mist cleared. The words unwound from an impossible knot and laid themselves out in a trail for Martin to follow, and there was such a blessed, guilty relief in it. "It wasn't even you suggesting that I stay in the Archives, you know," Martin said, and a little huff of a laugh escaped with it. "Or the extra security, or the fact that you believed me. Not just that, anyway. It was how _easy_ it was to tell you. It's never easy. I don't talk about _me_ , or how I'm _really_ feeling, or anything, not usually. It doesn't come naturally. But I told you everything, every last detail. I told you how scared and upset I was, and how much I wanted you to believe me, and every little thing I did over those weeks, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd ever opened up like that. I mean, neither of us knew about the compulsion thing, then. I just thought you were shockingly easy to talk to, more than anyone I'd ever met, and I... liked that. It made me feel good. And I couldn't stop thinking about it, and one thing led to another, and now, well..."

Martin paused for breath and saw that Jon's mouth was hanging slightly open. There was more, an ocean of things that Martin could say, of which he'd only trawled the surface, but the spell broke as Jon choked out something unintelligible and looked vaguely ill.

"... I _compelled_ you," Jon managed on a second attempt, horror dawning like he hadn't really thought about it before.

Oh, no. That wasn't what Martin had wanted at all. "And it was fine!" he said hastily, holding up a placating hand and trying to get ahead of any spiraling before Jon could start in earnest. "You didn't know. And it was completely willing. I mean Christ, Jon, it made me _fall_ for you. Relax."

It probably should have been more embarrassing to admit -- not just his silly feelings, but the fact that it might have been the first time in his life that he'd ever felt so open, enough to send him careening into a crush. The whole thing probably should have left Martin with the strong desire to burrow into a certain coffin to spend a comparatively comfortable eternity within. But it wasn't and it didn't.

He could so clearly remember laying awake in the Archives in the weeks that followed, frustrated and trying to figure out _why_ that one conversation had been so _different_ , why Jon had magically been so easy to talk to when he was prickly and difficult at so many other turns, and concluding that maybe Jon just had layers to him. Hidden, hidden layers. Which had been a very intriguing notion that Martin's overactive imagination had latched on to and projected the beginnings of a safe sort of crush, nothing _serious_. And he hadn't even been wrong about his conclusions, either, in the end.

It was just funny now. In a twisted sort of way.

"So, you see?" Martin continued, when Jon seemed at a loss for words. "Your powers don't always have to be a bad thing. They can be helpful. And sometimes... attractive, I guess." He didn't know where _that_ had come from, because it certainly wasn't being compelled out of him, but it was worth it when Jon nearly elbowed a spray bottle off the table.

"Right," Jon said, his voice stiffening in a way that Martin could only find endearing now. "Well. I'm glad it was... helpful for you."

A grin stole across Martin's face again, and he felt... lighter. Like getting those words out had cast some nameless weight aside, had dissipated the fog shadowing his steps, when he found no judgment waiting beyond -- only Jon being flustered, and wasn't it charming, that _Martin_ was able to do that? "Wasn't the only thing, you know," he said, a little bit teasing and bold, wanting to do it again. "I could keep going."

"That's quite enough for now," Jon said, a little bit strangled.

Martin acquiesced by grabbing a bottle and a duster. "Okay," he said, fondness seeping through the word. Fondness and _feeling_ , winding through his chest instead of fog. He'd missed that, and he hadn't known how painful that absence was until the gaps had started filling back in. It ached now, like an old wound, but it wasn't a bad hurt. "Let's pick up, and we'll stop for today, yeah? If I breathe in any more of this stuff, I'm gonna get sick."

But the house was certainly in a better state than it had been when they'd arrived. Another day or so of cleaning, and Martin would feel less like dust and grime were trying to make a home in his pores.

Jon nodded mutely, apparently still trying to process things, and Martin was about to leave him to it, nearly at the door, when: "Martin--"

Martin paused and looked back.

Jon stood where Martin had left him, only turning to follow his exit like a flower tracking light, and his hands were rather fidgety. "I want you to feel like you can... tell me things," Jon said, surprisingly steady as he stepped carefully between the words. "Without powers. I'll listen. To... to anything you want to say."

The feeling in Martin's chest squeezed even tighter, light and hopeful and just a little bewildered at the turn of events. It might have been a touch painful too, but not terribly so. "At the risk of sounding like a cliche?" he said, and his voice was just as oddly steady. "It's not you. It's me."

"I understand," Jon said with another nod, and Martin got the sense that he really, truly did. It was dizzying to consider, and maybe a bit terrifying, and not in a bad way. "But I'm here, if you need."

"Um... thanks," Martin said, the echo of an older conversation shivering through his spine, and reciprocal instinct had him twitching, hesitating in the doorway. He couldn't very well leave it at that. Well, he _could_ , but old habits and all, and so he took a breath and said, "And if _you_ need? Until Basira sends more, or if the old statements aren't enough, I could--"

It hadn't escaped his notice that Jon still looked as awfully tired and ragged as ever, even with a few days to unwind in the middle of nowhere and a fresh _meal_ from Peter Lukas. That no amount of old statements had seemed to ease it entirely, before they came here. But surely Martin had experienced enough fear, after the worms and before the Lonely, for another statement or three.

"No," Jon said, quick and iron in a way that Martin knew he wouldn't be easily steamrolling over any time soon. "I'm... I'm drawing the line there. I will _not_ take any more statements from you."

Martin thought about arguing for a moment, and then decided against it, because Jon was trying and the last thing Martin wanted to do was make it harder. If things got... worse, dangerously so, they'd deal with that then. He'd plan in the meantime. Compartmentalizing, logistics. Martin was pretty good at that, as long as he had something to pour his energy into and protect.

"Okay," he said softly, letting the moment slide away at last, and idly, he wondered how they'd gotten here. Where discussing Jon's _eating_ _habits_ had become another fact of life, where the offer to spill his guts in the normal way was on the table and didn't seem three steps out of reach. Where it seemed like it might almost be _easy_ , sooner rather than later. The past few years certainly hadn't been easy, but they'd led to this point even after he'd lost his grip on nearly every last shred of hope, and somehow, that was stranger than any circus or institute or cult.

Martin turned to go before he could get lost in thinking about it too much, with an, "Open the windows, will you?" tossed over his shoulder, and he didn't need to see Jon to feel the smile follow him out of the kitchen.


End file.
